


Top That

by avesnongrata



Category: Captain America (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3450827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avesnongrata/pseuds/avesnongrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just your standard, old-fashioned, intergalactic stunt competition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gamora

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VoyageBoots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoyageBoots/gifts).



Transitioning from being the Assistant Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to working for Stark Industries hasn’t exactly been a smooth process, but Maria Hill has to admit that being friends with Pepper Potts makes it a whole lot easier to handle. At the very least, it’s nice to have someone to share coffee with a few mornings a week. The starts of her days were never so companionable on the helicarrier, that’s for sure.

This particular morning is quiet. Pepper sits at her desk, latte in one hand and Stark Industries-issued tablet in the other hand, and Maria’s camped out on the small sofa in her office, scrolling through her inbox on her phone. All of a sudden, Maria lets out a surprised bark of laughter and nearly chokes on a mouthful of her coffee.

“Are you okay?” Pepper asks, unsure whether to be alarmed or amused.

Maria nods, still laughing. “You have to see this video Carol just sent me.”

“Carol Danvers? Isn’t she supposed to be in space with the Guardians?” Pepper doesn’t wait for an answer before switching on the monitor on the far wall so Maria can cast the video from her phone.

“She is, but we still keep in touch,” Maria shrugs as the video appears on the screen. “Just watch.”

It takes a moment for Pepper to process exactly what she’s looking at, but it looks as if Carol’s filming a bird’s eye view of a wide, underground river in some cavernous alcove. The churning water glows an eerie blue-black, the rippling light reflecting off the stalactites and stalagmites that serrate the cavern, hanging down from the ceiling and jutting up from the floor and even the river itself. A woman stands on one bank, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet at the water’s edge.

“That’s Gamora,” Maria explains. “They call her the Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe, but Carol says she’s actually really fun once you get to know her.”

Pepper nods and then gasps as Gamora leaps from a dead standstill out over the water. She catches the edge of a stalagmite and swings around it, using the momentum to launch herself onto another outcropping of rock farther out in the river. From there, she leaps and flips, tumbles and clambers from rock to rock, steadily working her way from one side of the river to the other in an impressive display of daring and acrobatics.

Carol keeps the camera trained on her the whole way, flying ahead of her to get a better angle of her final precarious leap onto the far bank of the river. Gamora lands hard and rolls, popping back upright with a triumphant nod of her head.

“See? I told you I could make it acr--“ Gamora starts, but at that moment she trips over her own feet and nearly wipes out on the floor. Carol can be heard cracking up behind the camera while Gamora regains her balance with an annoyed scowl on her face.

“Wait, are you still filming this?” Gamora growls, her eyes going wide.

Carol only laughs harder, the camera shaking in her hands.

“Delete it!” Gamora demands and lunges for the camera. “Carol, I swear to--“

The video ends abruptly, leaving Maria and Pepper nearly howling with laughter in front of a black screen.

“I thought you might like that,” Maria chuckles once they’ve both regained their composure a little.

Pepper nods, still clutching her sides. “Poor Gamora. An almost perfect routine, but she just couldn’t stick the landing.”

Maria grins as she types out a reply to Carol’s message: _Thanks for sharing, Carol. We got a good laugh out of it._

 

* * *

 

It’s nearly time for Maria to clock out and go home for the day when Pepper’s assistant ushers her into the CEO’s office again.

“I got another video from Carol,” Maria says by way of an explanation for her intrusion.

Pepper smiles at her and turns the monitor on, unperturbed by the interruption. “Let’s see it.”

This time, Gamora’s face takes up the whole frame of the video. “Carol told me you laughed at the video she sent you, Maria Hill. If you think that’s so funny, I’d like to see you – or any other Terran – do better.” Her voice is cold and intimidating, but the spark of challenge in her eyes is unmistakably good-natured. Just before the video cuts out, Maria swears she can even see the corner of her lip curl upward.

"Well, if it's a competition she wants, that's exactly what she's going to get," Maria chuckles as she switches off the screen again.

Pepper raises an eyebrow. "You think you can top that?"

"Probably not personally, no," Maria admits. "But I know someone who can."


	2. Sharon Carter

“How’s that feel? It’s not too tight, is it?” Pepper asks as she finishes fastening the camera harness around Sharon’s shoulders. She takes a step back and watches critically while Sharon twists this way and that, testing her flexibility and range of motion.

“No, it’s fine.” Sharon concludes at last. “This camera is _tiny_!”

“Stark Industries’ finest,” Pepper beams. “We’ll film your point of view on that one and overlay it on the wide-shot footage I’ll get with this one.”

“What we lack in creepy space rivers, we’ll make up for in production value,” Maria adds, and Sharon laughs appreciatively.

“Okay, ready when you are, Sharon,” Pepper announces, raising her camera into position.

Sharon rolls her shoulders a few times, just to make sure she’s properly limbered up, then gives Pepper and Maria a confident nod. When Pepper gives her the go-ahead, she looks into the camera with a grin. “Hi, this is Sharon Carter, and I’m about to play a good, old-fashioned game of ‘The Floor is Lava.’” She gestures down the long alley behind her. “I’m going to make it from where I’m standing, all the way over that fence without touching the ground. And I’m going to do it,” she adds with a cock of her head, “in 30 seconds or less.”

Pepper pans over to where Maria is waiting, stopwatch at the ready, then back to Sharon, who takes a few big steps backward in preparation.

On Maria’s mark of, “Ready... go!” Sharon gets a running start and vaults over a dumpster and up onto the lowest rung of a fire escape ladder. From there, she swings herself up onto the lowest platform, then scales her way up to the next tier. She takes two long stride and leaps from that ledge onto the next rig, making her way down the alley.

Behind the camera, Pepper holds her breath as Sharon backflips across the alley and catches herself on the maintenance scaffolding on the far wall. She swings herself up onto the long wooden planks and runs down them, adding a few flips as she goes, just for show. By now she’s nearly at the end of the alley. Sharon leaps from the scaffolding, kicks off the far wall, and swings down off the adjacent fire escape. The lid of the dumpster that breaks her fall clangs ominously, the sound echoing off the buildings, but she keeps going. She clears the next dumpster with only her hands propping her up, then crouches and leaps off the third, vaulting over the fence at the alley and rolling when she hits the ground on the other side.

“24.7 seconds!” Maria shouts the moment she gets to her feet.

Sharon lets out an adrenaline-fueled whoop. “Earth: one. Space: zero!” she crows, punching a fist into the air. “Your move, Guardians!”


	3. Nebula

Nearly a week goes by before Carol sends Maria another video in answer to Sharon’s challenge. Rather than watching it right away, she arranges to have Pepper and Sharon over to her place for a viewing over dinner and drinks. Somehow, the three of them muster up the patience to make it through most of the takeout and a beer apiece before arranging themselves around Maria’s living room in front of the TV.

“Is everyone ready?” Maria asks, the remote in one hand and her second beer in the other.

Sharon tosses a bottle cap at her. “For god’s sake, Hill, just play the damned thing!”

“I think we’ve waited long enough,” Pepper agrees with a broad smile.

Maria certainly doesn’t need to be told twice. She hits play and settles back into the sofa, enrapt.

The woman that appears on the screen is unfamiliar, striking, with blue skin and left side encased in biotech. She stares into the camera with black eyes and a neutral expression.

“That must be Nebula,” Maria speculates. “I’m a little surprised Gamora would tag her in. This should be good.”

Onscreen, Nebula says nothing. She merely turns and gestures to the enormous room in which she is standing. In the center of the room is a circle of massive pillars, each one easily 8 feet tall and too wide to wrap one’s arms around. They’re all made of the same rough, faceted glass, or possibly even ice. In the center of the circle, a shorter pillar holds up a single wine glass on a delicate stem, filled with a rich, deep sapphire-colored liquid.

Pepper glances around the room to Maria and Sharon, both of whom look about as puzzled as she does herself. “What do you think she’s going to do?”

“Holy shit!” Maria gasps as Nebula raises her arm and fires some sort of focused concussive energy from blasters attached to her wrists.

The nearest pillar explodes in shards as fine as powder, making a sound as musical as it is devastating. Another pillar meets the same fate, then another, and another, until only the center pillar is left standing.

Hips swaying dangerously, Nebula walks through the rubble and pick up the wine glass, which remains completely intact and untouched. Her dark eyes flash as they meet the camera, her expression smug. She raises the glass in a silent toast, takes a sip, and the camera goes dark.

“Okay, _that_ was impressive!” Sharon concedes with admiration. “I want one of those blasters.”

Beside her, Pepper can only nod, her eyes wide.

Maria, however, is still staring at the screen, eyes narrowed.

“Maria? Are you okay?”

She nods slowly, a sly smile spreading across her face. “I can top that.”


	4. Maria Hill

True to her word, Maria wastes no time coming up with an answer to Nebula’s challenge. Pepper once again volunteers to film the whole thing, and Sharon pulls a few strings at the shooting range she frequents to ensure they’ll have the place to themselves for an afternoon.

Once they’re all set up, Maria steps up to the shooting line and turns to face the camera. She holds her head high, with all the upright bearing her military background instilled in her. Even though she is not cybernetically enhanced, she’s more than intimidating enough in her own right. When Pepper gives her the go-ahead, she introduces herself, her voice strong and professional in contrast with Sharon’s confident lightheartedness and Nebula’s daunting silence.

“My name is Maria Hill. I’ll be shooting a Beretta M9 semiautomatic pistol, loaded with ten rounds. Nothing fancy, just a standard-issue service weapon.” She releases the magazine, holds it up to the camera, then snaps it back into place to prove her point. She sets the gun down, then gestures downrange to the array of targets she and Sharon set up ahead of time: shot glasses filled to the brim with blue liquid. It’s only food coloring and water, of course, but the effect is still pretty cool. “Out there are ten targets, all positioned at varying heights, staggered at distances from 35 to 50 feet. I’m going to hit them all, in ten seconds or less. Ten rounds, ten targets, ten seconds,” Maria recaps, calling her shots without batting an eye.

With one last nod to the camera, Maria turns to face downrange and makes sure her protective ear- and eyewear are in place. Pepper and Sharon do the same, and Pepper keeps filming over Maria’s shoulder.

Maria sets her stance and picks up the Beretta, her hands steady and sure. With a deep, centering breath, she flicks off the safety, and begins mowing down the shot glasses. She sweeps left to right, snapping each shot off in rapid succession with barely a second in between each one. One by one, she glasses shatter in sprays of water and broken glass until none of them remain. Once the dust settles, her professional façade finally cracks. She grins over her shoulder at the camera and reholsters her gun with a triumphant flourish.

Sharon, to her credit, manages to wait until Pepper stops recording to cheer and slap Maria on the back. “That was amazing! I mean, I knew you could shoot, but _damn._ ”

“Maria, does Clint know your aim is that good?” Pepper asks, replaying the video and shaking her head in amazement. “You could probably hustle him for all he’s worth if you tried.”

Maria beams, not bothering to hide just how pleased she is. “Let’s just hope that was good enough to win us some points in this competition.”


	5. Pepper Potts

As it turns out, Maria’s sharpshooting is more than enough to merit another challenge video the next week, and another, the week after that. Over the course of the next few months, they swap dozens of videos, sharing everything from feats of strength and agility to displays of skill and dexterity, each more entertaining than the last. What Sharon and Maria lack in high-tech equipment and alien scenery, they more than make up for in creativity, enough to hold their own against Gamora and Nebula in points.

Though Carol started out as the only point of contact between galaxies, she opts to set up a joint fileshare system so that all the members of the stunt competition can contact one another directly. Even so, both sides usually wait to watch each new video as a group. One evening, Gamora, Nebula and Carol are pleasantly surprised to see Pepper smiling in front of the camera instead of behind it. She and Maria stand in the middle of a ring in comfortable workout gear, Pepper’s hands wrapped and Maria’s stuffed into trainers’ mitts.

“This isn’t exactly a challenge,” Pepper explains with a modest smile. “I’m still learning. I’m not nearly up to speed with the rest of you spies and intergalactic assassins, but nevertheless, I want to show you what I can do.”

She turns to face off against Maria, who gives her an encouraging nod and raises the mitts into position. The combinations of punches and kicks she aims at Maria are simple, no more than the basics, yet her form is more than proficient for her level of experience. Every so often, Maria takes a swing at her head, and Pepper slips or rolls under her arms smoothly and gracefully. The two of them move steadily around the ring to the sound of Pepper’s fists popping against the mitts. By the time they’re finished, Pepper is sweaty and grinning, and Maria beams down at her, clearly proud of her progress.

The Guardians waste no time sending their reply, the three of them crowded around the camera.

“Pepper, that was _awesome!_ ” Carol grins.

“Very impressive,” Gamora agrees. “Don’t worry about comparing yourself to us; we’ve trained our whole lives to do what we can do.”

“You’re doing quite well for a novice. Your technique is excellent, definitely worth a couple of points for your team,” Nebula adds, and the others nod emphatically. “Well played.”

Pepper’s video certainly marks a turning point in the competition. Soon tips, tricks and tutorials gradually start to join the challenge videos. After them come outtakes and slip-ups, followed by friendly conversations, and before long, both sides completely lose track of the score.


End file.
